Ministry’s Hands Are Tied On The Racial Slurs Of Trustee Elgie

(The York Region District School Board Acted To Protect Trustee Nancy Elgie From a Code of Conduct Review)

This week has been a very tough week for the York Region District School Board (YRDSB). After Tuesday’s emotional meeting with parents, and bizarre apology for racial slurs by Trustee Nancy Elgie, the Ministry of Education has appointed two investigators to come in and make “recommendations” on how to improve leadership and equality at the York Region District School Board.

Today, Ontario’s Minister of Education appeared on CBC’s Metro Morning to discuss the issues plaguing the YRDSB and did not commit to removing Nancy Elgie as a trustee after several calls from the community for her to step down. One of the reasons why, is because the YRDSB treated the racial slurs coming from this Trustee’s mouth as a human resources complaint, rather than a code of conduct complaint thus protecting her from the accountability mechanisms that are in place to hold trustees publicly accountable under board bi-laws.

By treating this as a human resources complaint, her fellow trustees at the board can not hold Elgie to account on those racial slurs on code of conduct violations and neither can the Ministry of Education. Nor can they speak publicly on it as a result of this complaint being confidential. This is precisely the problem at the York Region District School Board who continually ducks from public accountability, and I fail to see how exactly trust can be instilled back into this institution without Elgie’s outright dismissal which is unlikely to happen as a result of her racial slurs.

Patrick Case, a University of Guelph political science professor is one of the two investigators the Ministry of Education has sent into the YRDSB. In a recent interview Case stated:

“People need to look at the process as one that will take time. It’s not that the two of us are going to go in there and sprinkle pixie dust. What people should be looking for is steady progress, rather than a quick fix.”

What I think is likely to happen, is that these investigators will come in and provide “short term” solutions to equality. However, for long term solutions the board and its trustees need to be held accountable if those solutions are to be solidified within the board. Otherwise this “investigation” by the Ministry seems to be rather a public relations stunt by an unpopular premier looking to solidify votes in the 905 rather than acting on the issue of systemic racism at the YRDSB which requires that Trustee Elgie be held to account publicly under the Trustees code of conduct.

This isn’t just a YRDSB problem. The school boards are set up as self governing with public representations and accountability. If the public can’t hold a trustee to account under codes of conduct, than this is going to send a message province wide, that if you become a trustee in the school system, you can do and say what you want without fear of being held accountable. That’s not a system that has the best interests of the children and communities they serve. In fact this is and already has made our kids less safe as a result, and this systemic racism will stop short term, but it’ll be business as usual at the YRDSB a few months after the public attention has gone away.

No matter what these “investigators” recommend, if trustee accountability is not put forth regarding Elgie than those recommendations are meaningless and nonbinding.